


The Man With The Twisted Skein

by rightonmybins



Series: The Real Househusbands of Baker Street [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Another Watson Wardrobe Malfunction, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Life at 221B Baker Street, Fluff and Humor, John please let me back in the bed, M/M, Sherlock's knitty-thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-06 06:40:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13405587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rightonmybins/pseuds/rightonmybins
Summary: Sherlock decides to knit a jumper for John. And then becomes a wee bit distracted.





	The Man With The Twisted Skein

Once John left for work, Sherlock reached underneath the sofa cushions and brought forth his latest experiment. It was nothing that could be kept in the fridge, stuck under the microscope, cooked in the microwave or dissected with a scalpel – although sharp pointed instruments were certainly involved.  
Sherlock was knitting John a jumper. 

 

A week had passed since John’s favorite jumper met its death by hydrochloric acid (completely Sherlock's fault), and the beastly stench of burnt Aran wool had nearly disappeared from the flat, but Sherlock was still kipping on the sofa and John was still shooting Sherlock filthy looks from under his wiry eyebrows. Although Sherlock had apologized in his own special and completely inadequate way, that ruined jumper had been John’s final straw. 

Sherlock had already destroyed so much of John’s wardrobe: John’s shoes were ruined from chasing Sherlock through ankle-deep puddles, his trousers were always covered in Thames mud, one sleeve had been violently torn from his green Army jacket (well, it HAD been on fire…). Sherlock had also turned all of John's underpants pink - the less said about that the better - and knotted John’s ties into an emergency escape rope. Just in case the flat caught fire. Again.

Now Sherlock was quite desperate to get back into John’s good graces. Not to mention, desperate to get back into their bed. The sofa was adequate for thinking and sulking, but cuddling and snogging oneself was no fun at all.

But a plan was afoot. Instructional YouTube videos were a goldmine of information, apparently – one could learn anything! Cooking, napkin-folding…knitting! Sherlock resolved to learn to knit straightaway and replace John’s beloved jumper. It seemed likely that anyone who could tie his own shoes could knit, and what more would a jumper require aside from a pile of woolly yarn and some pointy stick-things…  
For such a superior intellect as Sherlock Holmes, how difficult could this possibly be?

Before he could get properly started, however, Mrs. Hudson had to be called in and was obliged to spend an entire morning untangling him from the accidental yarn-bomb he’d made of the flat. Once that snarled spider’s web had been unraveled, and once she'd helped him to wind it all back into neat and orderly balls, Sherlock began working on a sleeve.

Let’s see, how long should sleeves be? Long enough to roll up, he decided, so that John could keep them out of his soup and the dishwater and any corrosive experiments. Knit knit knit. Good lord this was boring. He turned on the telly for some crap daytime diversion. Oh look, a Who’s Your Baby Daddy marathon. Well, this one's far too obvious, that bloke with the Hoxton Fin...  
By the end of the afternoon Sherlock decided the sleeve was probably long enough.

The following morning he began on the other one while watching reruns of The Great British Baking Show, which kept him occupied until nearly teatime. That lemon drizzle cake looked rather moreish, but the jam roll was complete and utter bollocks…  
Knit knit knit. There, that was probably sufficient. Sherlock held up the sleeves. Not quite the same length, but who would notice when they were rolled up? Although it seemed the sleeves had used up more yarn than anticipated – Sherlock briefly wondered whether there would be enough left for the rest of the jumper, even one made to fit a compact man like John. Well, yarn stretched, didn't it? Never mind, crack on!

Days flew by. Sherlock became entirely too immersed in watching Hollyoaks. Knit knit knit. The jumper was progressing quickly enough, but when Lestrade phoned the project was jammed back into the sofa cushions again. It lay wadded up under there for several days before it was retrieved, covered with random sofa crumbs and fuzz. Then as Sherlock energetically shook it, out the knitting needles went flying – and by the time he’d wasted all that time turning the flat upside down to find them, it was difficult to tell exactly where he’d left off. He would simply have to guess. Knit knit knit. There. Back on track. Once John saw his new jumper, he’d forget all about the ruined one. At any rate, this one was certainly much more cheerful with all its bright colors.

By the week’s end Sherlock had come to the last of the yarn, and was very pleased with himself. It was a jumper, all right – two sleeves, a body, a hole for the neck and it was only slightly odd-shaped; lying squashed under sofa cushions and being slept on hadn't done it much harm at all. It was brilliant. Once John put it on, it would fit him perfectly, Sherlock was sure of it. 

He heard John come in the front door and start up the stairs. Shoving the jumper out of sight again, he quickly arranged himself on the sofa in his Thinking Position.  
“Just been lying there all day, have you?" John said irritably. "No time to do any shopping I suppose. Ta." Still angry, apparently.  
Sherlock leaped up and said, “I was just about to make tea! Like some? No trouble, of course.”  
John grunted and headed toward his chair with the newspaper while Sherlock prepared the tea and biscuits, gleefully anticipating John’s surprise this evening when presented with his handsome new jumper. 

But when he came in with the tea tray, he found John standing in front of the sofa with a long piece of multicolored yarn in his hands, slowly drawing it from between the cushions. Hand over hand he pulled, as a pile of crinkled yarn slowly collected around his feet. Yarn yarn yarn. Sherlock froze – all of his beautiful knitting coming unraveled! John kept pulling. 

“Sherlock, this string hanging out of the sofa ….. what the hell IS all this?”  
“Er….your new jumper?”  
“My what?”  
“I knitted you a jumper. I learned on YouTube.”  
“YOU….knitted something? For me?”

Sherlock made a woeful little face and nodded. John stopped pulling and Sherlock rescued what was left of his beautiful knitty scheme: two long snake-like tubes poking out of a larger sausage-shaped tube, all knotted and twisted and braided into a gruesomely gaudy jumble that even a circus clown would have thought about twice. 

John looked at Sherlock with love and trepidation in his eyes, and he bravely removed his shirt, lifted Sherlock's creation gingerly and eased it over his head. The neck hole came down over his shoulders. The droopy arm tubes were both on the same side of the jumper, forcing his arms straight out in front of him. The torso was so short it ended well above his navel. It could hardly be called a garment - it was more of a mutant potholder.

“Well, what do you think, John?”  
John was not quite sure what to think. But he did know what to say.  
“Thank you, Sherlock. This is… the most ….er, remarkable jumper I’ve ever owned.”  
“Am I forgiven then? Shall I move back into the bedroom tonight?”  
John winked at him. “Bed's been rather cold without you.”  
Sherlock folded his long arms around John and the mutant potholder.  
“John, I promise you will never need to feel cold in bed ever again.”  
Then he leaned close to John’s ear and whispered seductively: “I'll knit you matching socks".

**Author's Note:**

> Hoxton Fin: man's hairstyle featuring a tuft of hair gelled into a shark-like fin, popular in East London in the early 00's. Now the international symbol for wanker.
> 
> Moreish: tasty, requiring one more taste. And then one more…
> 
> The Great British Baking Show is real; Who’s Your Baby Daddy doesn’t exist (although perhaps it ought to).


End file.
